Biomedical subjects

Mats J Olsson

Publications and source records attributed to Mats J Olsson.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

Psychological effects of subthreshold exposure to the putative human pheromone 4,16-androstadien-3-one.

Research on human putative pheromones has recently focused on the effects of exposure to 4,16-androstadien-3-one (androstadienone). This steroid has been observed in the skin, axillary hair, and blood plasma, primarily in males. In addition to effects of the steroid on measures of physiological arousal and brain blood flow, positive mood effects have also been reported. The current study further investigated mood effects of androstadienone exposure (250 microM) in women in two experiments. Through psychophysical testing of each individual we controlled for whether any observed mood effects could be related to sensory detection of the steroid. In both experiments, we observed positive changes of women's feeling of being focused, which could not be related to sensory detection of the steroid. Overall, the patterns of results were significantly correlated between the two experiments. In conclusion, this study corroborates earlier findings suggesting that androstadienone exposure yields effects on women's mood; the feeling of being focused. The mood effects were not dependent on menstrual cycle phase. Further, these effects are replicable and occur also when androstadienone detection is rigorously controlled for across variation in menstrual cycle.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Individual differences in sensitivity to the odor of 4,16-androstadien-3-one.

Individual differences in sensitivity to the putative human pheromone androstadienone were investigated in three experiments. In experiment 1, the absolute detection threshold for androstadienone was determined to be 211 micro M using the method of constant stimuli. Detection for the related compound estratetraenol was also investigated but a threshold could not be determined. In experiment 2, using an adaptive threshold test on 100 participants, the sensitivity distribution for androstadienone, but not for the reference odor phenylethyl alcohol, was bimodal, with a smaller group of individuals with a high sensitivity to androstadienone (supersmellers). A lack of correlation between thresholds for androstadienone and phenylethyl alcohol further suggested that the bimodality for androstadienone was not due to individuals with a high general olfactory sensitivity. In line with an earlier observation, there was a statistical tendency for women to be more sensitive to androstadienone than men. Results of experiment 3 preclude the possibility that the bimodal sensitivity distribution for androstadienone would depend on individual differences in trigeminal activation. Altogether, the current study suggests that olfactory sensitivity to androstadienone is bimodally distributed in the population with a subgroup consisting of highly sensitive people.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Olfactory metacognition.

The current paper focuses on the subjective knowledge people have about their ability to name odors. Previous investigations of such metacognitive aspects of olfactory cognition are very scarce and have yielded results that need further scrutiny. In two experiments, we investigated three metamemory judgments about odor identity. As opposed to previous findings, participants' feeling of knowing judgments about odor identity predicted later recognition. Participants were also accurate but highly overconfident in their retrospective confidence in odor identification. A strong and imminent feeling of being able to name an odor, a so-called 'tip of the nose' experience, was found to predict later recall, but was otherwise poorly related to any partial activation of the odor name or other information associated with the odor. This makes it different from the commonly investigated 'tip of the tongue' phenomenon. The current study shows that olfactory metamemory is related to actual knowledge, a finding that is in line with what has been observed for other modalities.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Implicit and explicit memory for odors: hemispheric differences.

In two experiments, implicit and explicit tests were used to investigate the lateralization of odor memory. Odors were at all times presented monorhinically. At test, odors were presented to either the ipsi- or the contralateral side of the nostril used for inspection. In Experiment 1, participants were first primed to a set of odors. At test, response latencies for odor identification were measured. The results were that priming odors tested via the left but not the right nostril were identified faster than control odors. In Experiment 2, a similar design probed episodic recognition memory. Memory performance did not differ between the left and right nostrils, but the measures of response latency favored the right side. The study demonstrates that it is possible to tap differences in memory performance between the cerebral hemispheres through monorhinic presentation of odors in healthy persons, and that these differences depend on the test nostril rather than the inspection nostril.

Adolescent↗